He twisted his cheek and shook his head. “Again, only one. Then it was gone.”
“Describe him.”
“Blue eyes. Black hair. Sharp features. Probably Italian, like you. Real handsome.”
“Your take on this?”
He scratched his head, dusted some dandruff into the air, and then made a face when it sprinkled around him like salt. “I’d say whoever it is knew I was looking. He or she was letting me know he or she knew. I’d get into specifics, but it can get pretty wordy.”
So the Machiavellian son of bitch was a fucking gangster nerd.
It was starting to feel like I was actually up against a ghost. A fucking ghost that was whispering, “Boo, motherfucker,here I am,” every time I got close, and then he’d disappear.
“Oh! I will say this,” Gene said, his voice screeching a little. “I knew of one of his—” He closed his eyes, his mouth moving, but no sound came out. “He would have been one of his nephews. His brother’s son. He was extremely knowledgeable about the same things I am. If you catch my drift.” He winked at me and then made a face, like he couldn’t believe he just did that. “Bad move, Gene,” he whispered to himself. “Badmove.”
Adriano took a few steps away from him.
“I’m not following,” I said.
“He was smart. Like…extremelysmart.” He said the word slowly. “So his uncle probably is, too.”
No shit, I was going to say, but he was already looking at me like he was prepared to speak slowly again. He didn’t even say anything technical. He thought he was the smartest guy around, but he was forgetting that he got one-upped by a gangster. Our specialty was the streets, not usually sitting behind a computer. But Vittorio Scarpone had lived an entirely different life for years. It made sense that he would develop skills to help him stay hidden.
Back in the day, it was easier to disappear. Everything wasn’t digital in the old days.
“You got something else to say to me?”
He was staring at me, hard, like he was debating. “You didn’t ask for this,” he rushed out. “But.” He pulled out an envelope from his back pocket, handing it to me. “The second article. It mentioned a little girl. Apparently there was some speculation about what happened to her. Vittorio killed her parents, but no one knew what had happened to her. Her name is or was Marietta Bettina Palermo. Your half-sister.” He shrugged. “Some information is listed for her. Birthday. Blood type. Thought you might want it.”
“How’d you fucking find that?”
“I find everything.” He shrugged. “Even when someone doesn’t want to be found. The guy you’re looking for, it’s not that he doesn’t want to be found. Simply put: he doesn’t exist anymore.”
“What about her?” I said.
He shrugged. “He doesn’t exist and neither does she, except for what I gave you. Or maybe I didn’t give it to you at all. Maybe he let me find it to give to you.”
He was controlling this fucking conversation, too. Everything he gave, he gave for his own reasons.
“Keep looking,” I said.
His eyes narrowed, but after I raised my eyebrow at him, he nodded.
“Yeah, okay, but I don’t think—”
“You’re right,” I said. “That’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s only giving you what he wants me to have.”
Sooner or later, when he was ready for me to find him, he would get in touch with me. Sooner or later, this kid was going to get a message from a ghost, andboo, motherfucker,it was going to be on. He was going to be there when I got close enough. Close enough to touch. Close enough to fucking kill.
33
Alcina
We had spent the day driving around the city in his old Cadillac. Even though his grandparents’ place was big enough, with excess to spare, I felt as if we were repeating history to stay there.
I did not tell Corrado this, but he seemed to sense it. Or perhaps he wanted out for his own reasons. I could sense that, too.
It was hard to put into words, but the house almost felt like a part of the family, but not ours. The other one. It was built to protect secrets, to protect them, but it was not made to keep a family close.
